Sideby (FI), Val Camonica (IT), Grosse Warsental (AT)
2023
A project by Sympoietic Society
Series of residencies, public programmes
With Unesco Biosphärenpark Großes Walsertal, Walserherbst Festival, Bugrgruine Blumenegg, Casa Parco Dell’adamello, Avanzi, Patagonia, Kilens Hembygdsgård.
A Salt Anthology is a poetic reflection on the relationships that make up the ecosystems of Portuguese salt pans. By focusing on the current fragile state of the salt marshes of Aveiro and Samouco (PT), once amongst the most productive in Europe, Inês Coelho da Silva, Joana Viveiros, and I composed an organic body of work that reflects on materials, ideas, and stories of the land. Studying salt, algae, rushes, mud, samphire, and much more, the exhibition is framed as a collection of visual stories in which scientific knowledge blends with craft and speculation. A creative text accompanies the exploration, proposing unexpected poetic readings of the artworks and the immersive experience (the smell of mud, the pink algae-inspired colour of the walls). As a result, ideas circulate freely among the objects, sensations, and narrations, inviting the audience to delve into the evident and hidden references scattered throughout the gallery. During the show, several natural processes gradually transform the artworks, embracing the symbolic and ethical dimension of slow practices of craft and care over capitalistic velocity and disruption. The exhibition features various artistic representations, such as a tablecloth that symbolises the topography of saltworks in bird view, bones and branches arranged as unreadable writings, and woven rushes as speculative containers of ideas. As artworks and curatorial tales narrate the hidden journey of sea salt and its origin, land and imagination reveal to speak interchangeable languages.
Residency, public programme
Chapter 01
Sideby, Finland
Ymmärrys ry, Kilens Hembygdsgård.
Residency, public programme
Chapter 02
Val Camonica (IT)
Avanzi, Casa Del Parco dell’Adamello
Residency, public programme
Chapter 03
Grosse Warsental (AT)
Unesco Biosphärenpark Großes Walsertal, Walserherbst Festival
The first residency was initiated in the coastal village of Sideby, South Ostrobothnia in Finland, and its lingering community. Our primary research revolved around the area’s connection to the land uplift phenomenon, which has been ongoing since the last Ice Age. Additionally, we delved into the complex relationship between the community and the Bothnian Sea, explored culinary and foraging practices, and uncovered folk tales and traditions. Collaborating with the local homestead museum Kilens Hembygdsgård we coordinated movement exercises, drawing and embroidery workshops, walks, and sauna rituals focusing on environmental education, grieving and speculative imagination. The residency concluded with the first Fire Talk: a series of storytelling exercises collectively enacted around a campfire while sharing sourdough bread prepared by the collective.
The first residency was initiated in the coastal village of Sideby, South Ostrobothnia in Finland, and its lingering community. Our primary research revolved around the area’s connection to the land uplift phenomenon, which has been ongoing since the last Ice Age. Additionally, we delved into the complex relationship between the community and the Bothnian Sea, explored culinary and foraging practices, and uncovered folk tales and traditions. Collaborating with the local homestead museum Kilens Hembygdsgård we coordinated movement exercises, drawing and embroidery workshops, walks, and sauna rituals focusing on environmental education, grieving and speculative imagination. The residency concluded with the first Fire Talk: a series of storytelling exercises collectively enacted around a campfire while sharing sourdough bread prepared by the collective.
The first residency was initiated in the coastal village of Sideby, South Ostrobothnia in Finland, and its lingering community. Our primary research revolved around the area’s connection to the land uplift phenomenon, which has been ongoing since the last Ice Age. Additionally, we delved into the complex relationship between the community and the Bothnian Sea, explored culinary and foraging practices, and uncovered folk tales and traditions. Collaborating with the local homestead museum Kilens Hembygdsgård we coordinated movement exercises, drawing and embroidery workshops, walks, and sauna rituals focusing on environmental education, grieving and speculative imagination. The residency concluded with the first Fire Talk: a series of storytelling exercises collectively enacted around a campfire while sharing sourdough bread prepared by the collective.
project collective:
Also check:
Wesen | Practices for Interspecies Mourning
Food and Art Alternative MA
A Salt Anthology
